


other pathways to hell

by sinteresting_facts



Series: Afterthoughts (WoW RP and OC Stuff) [4]
Category: Original Work, World of Warcraft
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-26 08:53:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21371461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinteresting_facts/pseuds/sinteresting_facts
Summary: A chat between friends about intrusive thoughts, not-so regretful regrets, and hair.
Relationships: NONE.
Series: Afterthoughts (WoW RP and OC Stuff) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1031495





	other pathways to hell

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "I Left the Wolves Behind That Night" by The Tiger & Me.

“Nah—nah, I think m’keeping it this short now.”

Schae swished his mug back and forth, watching the coffee swirl inside of it. It was rapidly losing heat, but it wasn’t like Schae had any standards. He didn’t like hot foods anyhow. 

“Why? It’s quite the change, Larchey,” Aatto remarked, doing that thing where he folded his shirt sleeve over and over into a little fan, and then letting it go loose.

“I th-think I’m just tired of…s-sub—subconscious signals I guess.”

“Subconscious signals.”

“Yeah—yeah. Like,” Schae lifted one finger to gesture, but it drooped as his mind stalled. He ordered his thoughts thrice over before he continued, “Long hair being, feminine. Or passive or something. I had it long as a sp-spiteful thing anyhow, s’not a big deal.”

“Well, to be completely honest Schaelarche it sounds like a big deal.” Aatto smoothed out his shirt, eyeing Schae more piercingly.

“Eh…I, d-don’t really think it is.”

“You do not have to give me a non-answer, it isn’t necessary.” 

Schae looked at him sharply. In the lighting of the evening, even while they were outside, his eyes were a pale ghostly tone without the light filling them with their normal blues and flecks of white-yellow. They looked nearly silver now, or white. Aatto sighed, and Schae took a drink from his mug, chastised just from the exhale. 

“Sorry.”

“You don’t need to be.”

“I know, but I am.”

“Just talk to me, alright, Larchey?”

“Alright Aatto.” Schae gave a muted nod as he responded, and looked down to his drink. “I..I just…”

“Mm?”

“I’m j-just sick of being seen as incompetent. I feel like I am. Incompetent, or weak…and I can’t exactly, y’know, impress people with my skillsets anymore s-so it’s odd. I f-feel like I’m not allowed to be anything other than people’s—“ Schae shook his head. Aatto raised a long brow at him, and Schae continued, “—..victim again. Y’know?”

“I wouldn’t know what you mean,” Aatto scoffed, “You’ve never come across as a victim to me.”

“You were my teacher. If I did I think our f-friendship would have turned out a lot more formal.”

“True,” he exhaled, long slender ears twitching. The chain he kept pinned to two earrings jostled a bit, and Schae’s own ears perked at the noise. Habits. 

“Yeah……a-also I, don’t….really want someone to cut it all off again,” he whispered, closing his eyes. “It makes me a target. Adds to the appeal of taking me or s-something,—pretty little whatever…I d-don’t want to be that. I am sick of being that, on whatever level, in whoever’s eyes.”

Aatto offered a slow nod. Schae heard the little jingle of earrings, so he didn’t even have to open his eyes. He appreciated those little familiar things. “I am s-so, so sick of it.”

“You have every right to be. You are a grown man, after all, no one likes feeling dependent.”

“Yeah..but..,” Schae opened his eyes again. 

“Don’t.”

“Oh but I will.”

“Hush.”

Schae chuckled, lifting the cool rim of his mug once more to his lips. “I-it’s irritating, as well. I’m so used to using well, a-all of that, to get what I need. Abandoning it seems…foreign.”

“You don’t need to abandon who you are just to get people to respect you. You shouldn’t have to, anyhow.”

“But if I do?”

“If it was any other time I would say resort to your methods.”

“I want to, s-sometimes.”

“I am sure you do.”

“It is so hard not stabbing people, Aatto. Wh-why is it so hard.”

“Because it’s what you know, Schaelarche,” he said in a gentle tone. The soft depth that came to Aatto’s voice when he spoke quietly was so damn comforting. “I know how difficult learning the natural arts was for you, it went against everything that you’d been programmed for.”

“N-not everything, but. Most things,” he frowned, voice sheepish. 

“You’re not just one thing or another, you. Are. A. Person, with many experiences.”

“Y-you don’t know that—“ Schae bit his words off with a yelp as Aatto flicked some water from his glass at him. 

“Stop being a brat. You know that it’s true.”

Schae released a sigh, leaning back on the bench, one hand grasping the edge of the table. They’d gotten a table without chairs. Aatto knew why, and hadn’t asked. 

“I do know it’s true, but that worries me more.” 

“Oh?”

Schae opened his mouth and then stopped himself with a dry, short laugh. With a little creak to his voice he confessed, “I h-haven’t seen Ms. Panacaea in awhile, stop me if I’m using you as a therapist.”

“Drink your coffee and talk,” Aatto rolled his eyes. “I know my boundaries, and I know yours. Go on.”

Schae shook his head fondly, a ghost of a grin on his face as he looked to Aatto. “Alright then.”

He drank once more, and then went on. “I-it worries me, because I can feel myself slip sometimes. Into these sorts o-of moods, and I can just…_eurgh_,” He huffed with frustration. “I j-just feel myself slip into old habits, or I feel this wall and I c-can’t get around it.”

“Examples?”

Schae thought for a moment, and then nodded to himself. “W-when I get frustrated, I get railroaded into th-this, I dunno, mindset where there’s only one way I can go about it. I get rid of the frustration at the source. A-and I don’t want that, not really—obviously, I c-can’t just kill my way out of problems anymore.”

“Very mature of you to recognize that,” Aatto murmured. Schae couldn’t tell if he was being serious.

“S-seriously though, I get all these th-thoughts and fantasies and it feels so wonderful and c-cathartic, but then I blink back to the situation and it’s…I can’t just kill, or hurt. It’s not who I am. It’s what I do, but. I’m more than just a killer.” Schae had long lowered his voice, leaning in over the table as he spoke to Aatto. 

Aatto did look a bit worried at that. Just a tad. His brow furrowed and scrunched up, eyes lowering for a moment as he thought. “Fantasies?”

“Aye.”

“Describe one?”

“I..” Schae balked. “Th-they’re not good.”

“I had assumed so, please? Humor me.”

“S’just things l-like thinking about the e-exact ways I could hurt people, friends and stuff, n’ the ways I already h-have before. S’like I’m planning a map project, I want to know exactly where I’m going to drive the knife into someone’s neck so they die quickly, even if that means the b-blood is going to make a..mess..” He looked up at Aatto, nervous now that he’d spoken. Aatto’s expression hadn’t changed. 

“You get these often?”

“Daily.”

“That is not good, Larchey.”

“Thanks Doc, I th-thought it was normal to fantasize about killing everyone around me,” he snarked, but his tone didn’t really have much oomph to it. He looked more exhausted than before, and he drank some more of his coffee. He ran out of coffee. 

Aatto shook his head, “You’re not a bad person for having those thoughts.”

“W-well I sort of am a bad person considering there’s truth to them.”

“Are you going to gut your friends?”

“N-no.”

“Then stop thinking you’re a bad person. You had your reasons back then, you’ve told me as much.”

“I d-don’t regret it either, though.” 

“Who cares, Schaelarche?” Aatto shook his head, slightly exasperated. “You’re not hurting people now, and you have made a good life for yourself with the company, and with Lowell.”

Schae looked frustrated for a moment, brow knitting itself as he shook his head. The short fluff of curly hair messed itself up, and he brushed with back with a curt gesture. Aatto glanced down and saw Schae picking at a patch of skin by his thumb. He sighed softly. 

“Are you thinking about upsetting things right now?”

“Th-thankfully no, not this time,” he muttered. 

“Then what are you thinking about?”

“It is a-annoying, that I can just keep living normally. That I get to live normally, even though I think about hurting people and I’ve killed so many.” Schae kept his voice whisper-low. 

Aatto eyed him for a moment before shaking his head while looking down at his glass. Twice he swirled it, and then took a long drink from it. “You want to be punished, don’t you?”

Schae made a face, “Ew. No.”

“That is _not_ what I mean, asshole.” Aatto rolled his eyes. 

Schae snorted quietly. After a beat he shrugged half-heartedly. “Maybe. B-but then I’d hurt more people, and lose everything…so, probably n-not worth the effort.”

“The effort of being arrested for crimes that have no tie to you and occurred over a decade ago?”

Another sigh. “Well, when you put it like that..”

“Yes, I am aware that it sounds stupid to you now. That was on purpose.”

“Bastard.”

“Yes, literally.”

Schae sighed out a laugh, “Y-you’re…right, probably not in any meaningful moral way but still.”

“Schaelarche, I’m a….what is the word for pragmatic but it is an ideology.”

“Ut-utilitarian?”

“With one or two ‘ut’s?”

“One.”

“I am a utilitarian person. If you are doing more good now then anything else, then I don’t see a problem. Also, I am biased because you are my friend.” Aatto smiled.

“F-fine, I’d take your morality over anyone else’s anyways.”

“Good, now finish your coffee and we can go to the library.”

“A-as you wish, doc,” Schae gave him a half hearted salute, accepting the end to that conversation with a great sense of relief. The night went on.


End file.
